Mick Jagger: Young in the 60s to Open at the National Portrait Gallery in London

Mick Jagger, 1966. Photograph by Gered Mankowitz.

LONDON.- Portraits of Mick Jagger taken in the 1960s will form a new display at the National Portrait Gallery from 3 May until 27 November 2011. Documenting the singers early rise to become one of the most influential singer-songwriters of the era, the display will coincide with the publication of Mick Jagger: The Photobook by Thames & Hudson.

Defining images of Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones from the Gallerys Collection, shown alongside a selection of new acquisitions, will together chart the first decade of the singers career. The Gallerys holdings of portraits of the group have built up over the last forty years, starting with a gift in 1972 from Cecil Beaton of his portrait of Jagger taken in Morocco in 1967. New acquisitions in the display include portraits of the singer by Gered Mankowitz, including one with his prized Aston Martin DB6, and another from 1968 that shows the influence of pop art and psychedelia on Jaggers clothes and surroundings. Mankowitz was just eighteen when he became the official photographer for the band, and his legendary cover images include Out of our Heads (1965) and Between the Buttons (1967).

The display will include an image from the Rolling Stoness first official photo shoot by Philip Townsend. Peter Stones reportage photograph of a Rolling Stones press call in Green Park will also be on show providing a visual roll call of leading photographers of the time such as Fiona Adams, Ron Falloon, and Monty Fresco. Other key images are a previously unexhibited colour photograph by Colin Jones (1967), Michael Coopers study of the Rolling Stones for the cover of their album Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967) and Michael Josephs supremely decadent image of the group posing with a large menagerie of animals for the gatefold of their album Beggars Banquet (1968). The Gallerys collection of photographs from the period has been recently enhanced by acquisitions arising from its Beatles to Bowie: the 60s exposed exhibition in 2010.

The display Mick Jagger: Young in the 60s has been inspired by the interest generated by a major survey of portraits of Jagger from 1964 to 2008 shown at Les Rencontres dArles Photographie 2010, and the accompanying publication compiled by the festivals Director, François Hebel.

Mick Jagger: The Photobook (Thames & Hudson) £14.95 includes over 70 images and spans the fifty years of Jaggers career. From Mankowitzs portraits in the 1960s to Andy Warhols a decade later, through to Anton Corbijns and Karl Lagerfelds images of the 1990s, right up until more recent images by Bryan Adams and others, the book brings together the most important photographs of Jagger.